Beneath a Scarlet Sky

It's no wonder Mark Sullivan's novel Beneath a Scarlet Sky (#846) spent so much time on the New York Times Best Sellers List.  Based on Italian teenager Pino Lella's actual World War II experiences, the narrative is both intense and brutal, recounting Pino's unsung heroics.

Milan had been largely untouched until the war drew on towards its final dreadful struggles under Mussolini and his Fascists.  As the Nazi presence grew larger in response to loosing ground to the Allies in Italy and elsewhere, it finally became a target for bombing.  Pino had just met the girl of his dreams, Anna.  That was the most important thing on his mind the night of the first bombardment.  In order to protect him and his younger brother, his well-to-do parents sent the boys to Casa Alpina high in the mountains.  There he became involved with Father Re's efforts to smuggle Jews out of Italy and over the border to nearby Switzerland.  Not exactly the isolated study center Pino's parents had had in mind.  When he neared his eighteenth birthday, Pino was abruptly summoned home and forced by his parents to enlist in the German army to save him from the draft that would have sent him to the front immediately as cannon fodder.  As luck would have it, recovering from a minor wound, Pino suddenly finds himself personal driver to the mysterious Brigadier General Leyers, high up in the Nazi command structure.  He is also perfectly positioned to spy for the Italian partisans, his role known only to his uncle Albert who recruited him.  Pino's life over the next several years is harrowing, to say the least.  He finds Anna again, only to lose her in a most terrible way, leaving him to doubt himself and his God.

I know very little about WWII and how it affected Italy, so this book was interesting on that level alone.  Pino's story and how it came to be written many years after the fact is astonishing.  How Pino survived the war is a miracle all by itself.  How many others he may have saved through his courageous actions is not known.  Their stories told here are worth reading.